MDOT Talks With Residents

Buying property and property values were just some of the topics discussed at a meeting designed to get input from residents that will be affected by the new Canal Road connector project on MDOT's drawing board. Currently MDOT is trying to put the final touches on the connector and secure funding to build the road that will connect the port of Gulfport to I-10 and public comments will help with that planning.

Claiborne Barnwell is an engineer with MDOT and says, "We will present the study that's ongoing so that when it comes time for the public hearing they don't just come in, look at the alignment and have had no real input in it."

One resident said between the noise and the litter, the path chosen isn't good for his neighborhood. "I guarantee you there's nothing that MDOT is going to do to keep that area from becoming a typical interstate type area."

MDOT's appraiser Cecil Dick says, "You can't build roads anywhere that don't disturb anyone, what we're trying to do is come up with a concept that will disturb the least people."

Because the road will go through neighborhoods, noise pollution and the fact that this connector will create an eyesore in their neighborhood were hot topics as well, but MDOT's environmental engineer says that with the coast's growing traffic problem it can't be avoided no matter where it's eventually built.

"This road is probably as needed for a traffic solution as any road we've studied at this time." The Canal Road Connector project will be built with gaming funds and it will wind through North Gulfport neighborhoods in order to connect I-10 and Highway 90.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

(AP Photo/Jennifer Kay). Six crosses are placed at a makeshift memorial on the Florida International University campus in Miami on Saturday, March 17, 2018, near the scene of a pedestrian bridge collapse that killed at least six people on March 15.

A matter of seconds between those who would live and those who would die as Florida pedestrian bridge topples down highway bustling with passing vehicles.

(Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). FBI agents work the scene of an explosion in Austin, Texas, Sunday, March 18, 2018. At least a few people were injured in another explosion in Texas' capital late Sunday, after three package bombs detonat...

Officials reported that an explosion in southwest Austin injured two men in their 20s who were hospitalized with injuries that didn't appear to be life-threatening.

(Joe Ahlquist/The Rochester Post-Bulletin via AP). Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a fatal stabbing Saturday, March 17, 2018, at the Salvation Army Castleview Residence in downtown Rochester, Minn. Police have arrested a man in the multiple...

Police have arrested a man in the fatal stabbing of two men at a Salvation Army apartment building in downtown Rochester, Minnesota.

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...